


We Shall Fight

by Dryad



Category: Space: Above and Beyond
Genre: Gen, post-ep: Mutiny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2795366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can't get eighteen years back in a day"</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Shall Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/gifts).



The meeting room was dim, even with the door open, because McQueen could not face being in the light. Not yet. Better here than in the lounge where he might be disturbed. The circumstance on the _SS MacArthur_ was troubling, at best. The government turning a blind eye to the 'illegal' shipping of in vitros - every day there seemed to be something new, single events cascading into a damning whole that suggested conspiracy. The worst part was that no one cared if McQueen saw what was happening. And that wasn't that McQueen had no history, it was because he was an in vitro. The simple fact was that he was better than the rest of them combined, and they knew it, and it rankled because he chose to be where he was. 

Didn't care that they knew it.

Knew it drove them nuts, for it would be far easier to take him down if he were of higher rank.

Yet for all that, he took no pleasure in their angry distress. The truth was that no matter what he did, how high in the ranks he went, he would never be anything more than a tank to them. He would be good…for a tank. He could be talented…for a tank. He was very polite and well-behaved…for a tank. He could talk and chew gum at the same time - wasn't that a miracle?

So when he saw the in vitro amongst the new recruits, one as surly and angry as he himself had been before he channeled his rage and confusion into personal progress, he knew he had to present himself as…what, exactly? He knew his faults well enough. He was vain, and fearful, intelligent, and filled with wrath. He was no hero, just an in vitro trying to survive.

McQueen tipped his chair back onto two legs, took a sip of chai, a treasured, after action indulgence. Hawkes was not his younger self in the present, no. McQueen felt affinity for Hawkes, for he knew what the boy had been through, what he would go through. But he could not afford to let that affinity dictate how he would treat Hawkes, especially for Hawkes' own sake. McQueen favored no one, and the sooner the lot of them realized that fact, the better off everyone would be, including himself.

The kid was still so new. At his age, McQueen had already been on Omicron Draconis for five months, had, in fact, been decanted downwell instead on board ship, for reasons he now suspected had everything to do with knowing only what the company told him. A short life of mining, educating him to be nothing more than a drone in a mine shifting rock and piping gas flow. There had been no TC McQueen for him to turn to there, not precisely. Most of the humans on Omicron Draconis were short tempered, at least with the in vitros. All of them, except Park Min, who in retrospect had not treated him with kindness so much as respect. She hadn't shouted at him, or hit him, or ordered him into her bed. He was glad of that, she was the only one who had kept away on the festive nights when the home-made hooch was shared amongst the crew.

And when things had gone to shit, it had been Park Min who had saved him and the others. Who had insisted they be taken aboard _Athens_ even though they were only tanks. Why he had been the only one to return to Earth, rather than go on to MS UT43 was beyond his ken. After all, the _Athens_ sick bay was the last time he had ever seen Park Min, and he saw no reason for her to have made sure he went to Earth. Granted, she had watched him closely after the incident with the flow controls, but still. It was an unfathomable mystery.

"Does it hurt? Doing what you had to do?"

McQueen rolled his cup on its edge on his thigh before looking up at Hawkes, who stood just inside the doorway. Anguish hunched his shoulders, and grief was writ large in the crease between his eyebrows. "Pain makes us who we are, Hawkes, human or in vitro."

Hawkes shook his head, still obviously not understanding. Or denying.

"Yes," said McQueen. He let the chair fall forward onto all four legs, leaned on the table instead. How to say what he needed to say, how to import - "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that they're human and we're not. It doesn't matter where we were born, or how we got that way. What matters is winning the war, and hammering out the details afterward. And if we're very lucky, in the process we'll prove just how like human we are."

"I don't _want_ to be human," spat Hawkes. He crossed his arms, frowned. "I just want to be around my family."

McQueen surprised himself, the crack of his palm against the table surface loud in the empty room. "Family? We don't have family, Hawkes. We have families of choice. Tell me," he said, standing up. "What do you have in common with any other in vitro from Philadelphia Facility?"

"We share a gene pool!" Hawkes whipped his arm back to point at in the direction of the _SS MacArthur_ , limping along behind the _Saratoga_. "I had a _sister!_ Someone I coul- "

"Someone to _what?_ " sneered McQueen. "Someone to chat with? Someone you could teach to ride a bike, go to the park? Talk about your facility? Share your sleep rack with during thunderstorms?"

Hawkes looked elsewhere, leaving McQueen to wonder if he had been too hard on the boy. Hawkes was one of the stubborn ones, he would burn out raging against the world instead of working with it, if he didn't try to find his own path in it. "It's not easy, Cooper. I know it's not easy. We were made for this world, quite literally made for it. Unlike humans we don't have years to learn how to exist, how to adjust to the demands of society. We are decanted - "

"Born," muttered Hawkes.

Heartened by Hawkes' quick glance at him, McQueen continued in earnest. "We are born, we live, we die, just as humans do. And here's the great secret, what we are never told as in vitros - now listen up, Hawkes, because this is the only time I'm going to say this," he softened his voice, not wanting to be overheard. "We may be in vitros, but we're no less human for it."

"You - you shouldn't say that," Hawkes said, looking over his shoulder at the open door. He turned back to McQueen, leaning forward and speaking equally quietly. "We're not even supposed to _think_ that."

"And I'm not going to say it again. Now you just forget about your sister, or with whomever you might share a gene. They're not your family, nor will they ever be," And if McQueen felt the pang of his own words as he spoke them, he hoped it didn't show on his face or in his tone. "You make your family as you go, and if fortune favors you, make another one after."

He saw the confusion on Hawkes' face, declined to say anything further on the subject. Let Hawkes think McQueen had forgotten in vitros were born sterile. If Hawkes lived long enough, maybe he'd figure it out. 

"You can't say things like that. Sir."

McQueen took a deep breath, went to the window to gaze out upon the Great Dark. It had been worth a try. He watched Hawkes, who was rocking from foot to foot ever so slightly. McQueen was sure he didn't even realize what he was doing. In vitros frequently didn't. Didn't have that feedback from parents that told them how to behave in public spaces. Didn't have anything but education and brusque, impersonal touches during medical examinations. And if, gods help them, they were touched by a human for sexual purposes…mistakes had happened. "If there's nothing else, Marine, I'm sure you have duties to attend to."

His image reflected in the window, Hawkes nodded slowly once, twice. Looked askance at McQueen, eyes darting to him and then around the room. "Aye, sir."

"Now get the hell out," McQueen clasped his hands behind his back, keeping his voice low and even and steady. So of course Hawkes stayed where he was. Thankfully they were interrupted by Damphousse before McQueen could be forced to make his point with a threat.

"Sir, the Commodore would like to see you in his ready room in ten mikes."

Luckily McQueen was backlit, so while he could see their faces they could not see his. Damphousse looked like something out of a film, all olive uniform and white turtleneck, leading to an empty space where her dark skin blended in with the color of deep space. McQueen knew she felt the tension in the room, he could sense it as clearly as any Marine could find liquor in an empty room. Besides, the body language between his two Marines was telling; Hawkes' little shrug, the angle of Damohousse's shoulders, questioning what he was doing in the room, her half-turned dismissal and eagerness to get away from whatever he and Hawkes were discussing. Hunh. There was hope for Hawkes yet, if he was bonding. 

Without another word the two of them slipped into the corridor, once again leaving McQueen alone with his thoughts, useless though they were. He wondered if Damphousse would be so forward as to ask Hawkes why he was in the meeting room with McQueen in the first place. If McQueen was lucky, Hawkes would figure it out sooner rather than later, because the learning curve was sharp and McQueen didn't want to have to clean up yet another mess on the decks.

Taking another deep breath, he let it out slowly, then went to meet Commodore van Ross, who would undoubtedly have words he had no desire to hear. McQueen snorted. There actually _was_ something he shared with Hawkes.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Most in vitros have a hard time with love."  
~Lt. Col. TC McQueen  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Boy, I'd forgotten how much I loved this series when it came around the first time. I'd also forgotten how gritty S:AAB was...makes me think there would have been no BSG reboot without it. Morgan & Wong were such a brilliant team, y'know? 
> 
> Anyhoo, I hope this story, short though it may be, hits all the right buttons for you. I love your work, so here's my teeny contribution to you.


End file.
